Review: Spectrum SF #8 vs Interzone #180 - At The Earth's Core!

I've been aware of the existence of Spectrum SF for a while now, mostly via adverts in Interzone. I hadn't bothered getting hold of a copy, though, because (a) between IZ and Asimov's and SF Age, I had quite enough short fiction to be going on with, and (b) I didn't quite believe that it was going to be any good, despite having stories by Stevie-boy Baxter and others.

SF Age died, though, and recently I've been a little disappointed in the quality of IZ. It's always been a magazine for 'literary' SF, but recently it feels as though the style has often become more important than the substance (starting with the interminable Richard Calder novellas and working on down). It's still a good read, but I'm not sure that it's really a great magazine any more.

So, when I saw a copy of Spectrum in Border's the other week, I decided to pick it up. And I present here for your reading pleasure a head-to-head battle between the old guard, in the shape of IZ #180, and the young pretender, represented by Spectrum #8. Fight!

First up, Interzone.

'The Blue Portal (part one)' by Eric Brown. This appears to be related to his recent PS Publishing novella (which also appears in the 'Infinities' collection) A Writer's Life, in that it features what appears to be one of the same characters. It's a vaguely Chris Priest-esque story of first contact with something - aliens? Another dimension? The future? It's not clear - taking place in the 1930s. It's also hard to judge a story by only its first part, but as things stand I'd say this was an enjoyable but unspectacular story. Much like A Writer's Life, in fact.

Next up, 'Pawn' by Timons Esaias, which is a spin on the 'real life games' concept seen in, amongst others, Iain M Banks' The Player Of Games. I liked this a lot, and thought the integration of the games into corporate culture was a nice idea, although I've always had a weakness for stories involving games or puzzles. Probably my favourite story of the issue.

Thirdly, 'Welcome To The Green Planet' by Keith Brooke. It's a very short story about Martian colonisation. I didn't think it was particularly good or inventive.

Terry Bisson's 'The Hugo Nominee' is an odd one; it's presented in the form of a script, and the end-notes say that it is 'to be performed alive at the SF Worldcon in San Jose by [Bisson], Mike Resnick, Nancy Kress, Stan Robinson and Janis Ian', and I think it's probably going to go down extremely well. On the page, though, it's only average (although the ending is good, if rather sick).

Lastly, Chris Beckett's 'To Become A Warrior' is a tale of Norse gods visiting a run-down near-future council estate. I thought this was very good, although I didn't enjoy it as much as the Esaias, probably because the speech-patterns of the narrator grated occasionally.

Where IZ often makes points, as with this issue, is with its columns. There's an interview with China Mieville and his big arms, typically excellent film reviews from Nick Lowe, and an interesting piece by Gary Westfahl on the future of SF publishing. Overall, not a great issue, but about on a par with recent IZ standards.

Now, Spectrum, before this gets even longer than I intended.

There is one story in the issue I have not yet read - Charles Stross' 'The Atrocity Archive' - because it is part two of three and I intend to order a copy of the previous issue. Other than that...

'Snow In The Desert' by Neal Asher is an outsider-with-a-cause story set on a desert planet. None of the ideas are exactly new, but I thought they were handled quite nicely, and overall this was a decent piece of action-SF.

'The Trees Of Terpsichore Three' is another Eric Brown, this time writing jointly with Michael Conley. One part murder-mystery, one part strange alien biology, I didn't think this was anything special, although I did like the initial premise:

"It's always like this, Jon," Alan Wiseman assured me the following morning. "Every advance party splits into two factions, sooner or later."

"Two factions?"

"Those who feel humans must adapt to the planet, and those who feel the planet must adapt to humans. It goes with the territory, with the job. You always find Ecology and its branches on one side, and Technology and its branches on the other. It's the nature of the beasts."

I like it because that's a generalisation of the split that comes up in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series, and I thought the story would say something more along those lines. Sadly, I didn't think the idea was particularly well-explored thereafter.

Both of the above stories were novelettes; the issue also contained two short stories, both of which I thought were excellent. 'Tall Tales On The Iron Horse' by Colin P Davies is one of those stories that mixes genres to great effect, although it would be spoiling the story to say exactly how this is achieved. Josh Lacey's 'A Night At The Movies' is an atmospheric story about a man trying to recapture what he sees as the golden age of cinema in an age where people typically keep as far away from strangers as possible, for fear of disease.

Only one column in Spectrum, but it's a good one - 'The Archive', wrtten by the editor and publisher Paul Fraser. Basically, it's a list of everything of interest to SF readers that's been published in the last month, but with added comments - ranging from one line to full reviews - by Fraser. As an added bonus, he also reviews the short-fiction magazines.

Overall, I enjoyed Spectrum greatly - so much so that I'm now considering a subscription, since it's not that expensive and I doubt my local branch of WH Smith's is going to carry it. In terms of story content, it seems to pitch its tent somewhere equidistant between the literary stylings of IZ, the character emphasis of Asimov's and the tech-adventure of Analog, which makes for a quite good mix. Notably, last year's 'best SF' anthology by Gardner Dozois contained as many stories from Spectrum as from Interzone. Not bad considering that the latter publishes three times as many issues a year...